today
date back to the 1950's and 1960's, with littlechange
in the intervening years. These traditionalapproaches
to hazard analysis are being overwhelmedby the
increasing complexity of the systems we arebuilding,
by the introduction of digital technologyand
software, and by the increased reliance ondistributed
human-machine decision-making and control.In this
class, we will teach a new approach to hazardanalysis
called STPA that allows handling much greatercomplexity
and the new types of technology common today.It
also has the ability to consider the socialand
organizational ("safety culture") factors inaccidents
and incidents along with the technical.STPA
is being used successfully on complex systemstoday.
The class will cover fundamental principles aswell
as examples and class exercises.